Did BP Give Star Treatment to Kevin Costner's Oil Clean Machines?

The current article you are reading does not reflect the views of the current editors and contributors of the new Ecorazzi

According to an article published today by The Guardian, it looks like BP and Kevin Costner have had a closer relationship than the public was led to believe.

In April, we took you through the tour that the “Bull Durham” star gave CNN’s Soledad O’Brien of his oil skimmer. It was hard to tell then if this skimmer could be, as he said, “an insurance policy for the Gulf,” or as my late Grandma Lee would’ve said in Yiddish, farkakte. During the interview, Costner boasted of the skimmer’s success and revealed his surprise that BP hadn’t shown interest in the $48 million idea.

Well, The Guardian has revealed that last summer, the oil giant in fact purchased $16 million dollars’ worth of Costner’s “Field of Dreams,” despite the fact that it took the company three attempts to make the skimmers work correctly.

It was also revealed that Costner’s charismatic, on-air promotion of his cleanup machine may have pushed his invention to the heap of 123,000 other ideas submitted to BP in the wake of the Gulf Coast spill.

BP spokesperson Daren Beado has responded to this claim with the assertion that Costner’s oil separator “…is one of the many technologies that were tested and used during the response. We appreciate all of the ideas that were submitted during this unprecedented response event.”
What are your thoughts here? Could Costner’s idea have received preferential treatment because of his celebrity status?